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Saturday, February 09, 2008

Reporting by cell phone

Newest anchors report by cell phone

TwinCities.com - Twin Cities / Newest anchors report by cell phone:
"UpTake cut to Steve Garfield, another phone-packing correspondent, reporting from a Boston bar near Fenway Park.

It was a seminal Web-video moment. UpTake viewers could participate during the live webcasts by sending text-based queries and comments, which Barnett and Garfield could see on their handsets and answer."
Blog entry: The UpTake pushes online-journo envelope

Here's some more background on my Massachusetts Primary coverage by cellphone over ATT via Qik to Mogulus:

I got a call on my iPhone tht Corrine was ready to have me go online from Boston, so I put the ear buds in and listened to her over the phone while I started the Qik software on the N95 and got my first guest ready to join me outside.

I went out side and turned n the stream and started reporting from Boston. Then I interviewed my first guest and then towards the end of the interview when I spoke with Corrine it seems like there was an issue and she had to switch to Chuck Olsen and go live with him since the battery on his laptop was dying.

So that stream was saved on Qik, but not stream at the same time to Mogulus. We tried again, and this time I went live and reported for 23 minutes from the streets of Boston out side Boston Beer Works near Fenway park.

The guests spoke about the election and viewers could chat directly to my phone and ask questions.

Throughout the interviews I propped up the N95 with both arms to keep it steady and also used the building as a pseudo tripod.

Having years experience using these small cameras I know where to hold it to get myself in the frame and then turned to my interviewee to get them in the frame.

The sound was good both inside and out.

When I got home I was able to watch the streams and see how they looked. Pretty clear for both audio and video.

Then I turned on The UpTake to see what was online, and it someone was doing a microphone check, so I went to bed nad turned on CNN for election results.

Ironic.